Sectarian violence has plagued Syria long before Ahmed al-Sharaa's Al-Qaeda affiliate, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, took control of the country last year. The Alawites, an Abrahamic faith that draws its ideology from the quran, faced centuries of persecution and discrimination, a reality that intensified after 14th century Sunni scholar Ibn Taymiyyah issued a fatwa against the religious minority, declaring them infidels.Taymiyyah declared the religious group “greater infidels than Christians, Jews,